Hunger pains

It seems the refrigerator fairies were conspiring with my mother to make sure I had a steady supply of food – just not the kind I would often buy.

A week ago my dad was diagnosed with cholesterol and told to lose weight and healthy up his eating habits. This was the perfect excuse for my mom, who can’t understand why people continually eat chips, chocolates and all those other unhealthy foods, to put him on a diet.

She got the soup diet from a friend, who lost quite well on it, and roped me into dieting as support. This is a diet and not an eating plan, designed to be followed for a week at time and claims rapid weight loss – and now I know why!

This is not to say that I can’t stand to lose a substantial number of kilos, but I’ve never really had the correct motivation. Supporting my dad in his journey to a healthier him is a great motivation.

The basis of the diet is fruit and veg, so it’s not a nutritionally deficient as some fad diets. They throw in the odd carbohydrate and protein to balance the nutrition intake.

Mom cooked up about 20 litres of vegetable soup, the main ingredient in this diet and packed my rations on Saturday so that I could start the diet bright and early on Monday morning.

So Monday I had fruit salad for breakfast, soup and apple sauce (delicious) for lunch and again for dinner. But it wasn’t just pieces of fruit – mom prepared raspberry sorbet and paw pay with freshly squeezed orange juice (really yummy).

When I sitting at my desk, longing for the sweet chocolately goodness, I kept telling myself that my dad wasn’t cheating, so I couldn’t. It kept me strong.

Tuesday was the vegetable day – dried fried mushrooms, onions, cherry tomatoes, peppers for breakfast (really not great unless it’s in an omelette), soup and salad for lunch and soup with baked mushrooms and roasted veg salad. As a reward you’re allowed a baked potato. I never thought I’d miss eating fruit, but man, was I jonesing for something sweet.

Wednesday was fruit and veg, and soup. Not so bad, but still no protein.

Thursday was soup, bananas and skim milk. I dry fried my breakfast banana, which was tasty, but not nearly filling. There was a banana for tea time, soup and banana for lunch and soup and a banana smoothie for supper. Mom has really gone to a lot of trouble to come up with different ways to make the legal foods tasty and varied.

Mom and Dad had both lost between 1 and 2 kilos by this stage.

I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to get up in time to beat the traffic to the office, so I worked from home for an hour or so and dragged myself to work at 9am. I was irritable, hungry and by the end of the day I’d pretty much lost the will to do anything – even eat! I sucked down my bowl of soup just because I had to.

Today, I’m 5 days in, with 2 more to go. It’s protein day today – 500g of steak, with tomatoes and more soup. So I had a piece of steak for breakfast (no way was I eating more bloody soup), soup, steak and salad (technically cheating, but come on, what damage is a few lettuce leaves, cucumber and red pepper going to do?) for lunch. Steak and soup again for supper. I’m supposed to eat tomatoes, but I really hate these little red spheres unless they’re pureed into pasta sauce.

I’m still miserable, irritable and would be quite happy to be dumped into a hole and left alone to waste away. I couldn’t be bothered to eat a packet of chips if you said I could.

But I’m hoping this diet will help break my bad eating habits and cravings. Already I’m thinking things like “if only I could have a few spoons of yogurt with my fruit salad”, and “if I could add a small tin of tuna to this salad, I’d feel better”. It used to be “I could really use a chocolate”, or “McDonalds is on the way, I’ll stop for a quick burger”.

On the up side though, I haven’t had to buy or prepare food for 5 days! And my tummy has been regular as clockwork – something that hasn’t happened in nearly 4 years.